Chalino Special

Ingredients

Instructions:

Shake well with cracked ice, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a twist of lemon peel.

The Wondrich Take:

It's amazing what you can learn in a bar. How to manage a basketball team, whether "Junoesque" is a compliment, the best way to get to the freeway by making only right turns, how to make a dollar bill impervious to the burning end of a cigarette without wetting it (wrap it around a heavy bar glass and hold it tight; the glass'll conduct the heat away from the paper), the relative atomic weights of fermium and californium, so on and so forth. Sometimes you even get something useful.

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Case in point. A while back, we were quietly bending the elbow at the Little Knight in Costa Mesa, California, when the conversation around us turned to the subject of tequila. "What's the best way to drink it" led to "the history of the Tequila Sunrise" (and no, Russ, Jim Bowie did not invent it). This in turn drifted into "Does El Toro Bravo have the best carnitas in town" (drunks are not known for their focus) and then came back to "When did Americans first start drinking tequila?" -- at which point we could no longer hold our peace, and uncorked a lengthy disquisition on the history and fortunes of the agave in America, concluding with a ringing defense of the margarita as the first tequila cocktail to make it in the States and still the only great one.

"Bullshit, dude!" It was Mike, down at the end of the bar. Mike -- Miguel, really -- had a grandfather Chalino, you see, who had been an L.A. bottle-jockey back during Prohibition, when the City of Angels had to take extraordinary measures to keep itself in strong drink. These measures, Mike explained, included cultivating an appreciation for the hitherto-scorned tequila, flowing freely right across the border. Much mixological research ensued, his grandfather being among the leading researchers. After much toil, Chalino came up with a Special so potent and delightful that it called his services into demand in swank speakeasies across the breadth of the L.A. basin, from Silverlake to Santa Monica. So says Mike, anyway.

"Do you know what's in it?"

"My mom's got it written down somewhere. I can call her, you want. She's real nice."

Would he mind doing that? Sure, no problem. Minutes later, the formula is produced. One last question. "Have you ever tried it?"